


Collared

by Shadow_of_Quill



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Bill does not appear in this fic but boy is he mentioned, Cursed artifact made them do it, M/M, Mullet!Stan, Paranoid!Ford, Prompt: "Please No", Prompt: Altered States, Prompt: Broken Trust, Prompt: Collars, Prompt: Into The Unknown, Prompt: Paranoia, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:41:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27315697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow_of_Quill/pseuds/Shadow_of_Quill
Summary: Stan shows up with something Ford wasn't prepared for. Good news is, neither was Bill! ...Bad news is, neither was Stan.
Relationships: Ford Pines/Stan Pines
Comments: 11
Kudos: 36
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Collared

Ford paced back and forth in the hall. He needed to hide the journal. _He_ couldn't hide the journal, Bill might see, Bill could find it, Bill might and he would and Ford couldn't - He needed _Stan_ to hide the journal. Right. Yes. He was waiting for Stan, because he'd written and Stan would come and he could trust Stan - he couldn't trust anyone, he couldn't trust _anyone,_ but this wasn't something big and wouldn't Stan want to prove he could be trusted? Wouldn't he want to make up for what he'd cost Ford (Ford gritted his teeth and rode out the surge of fury at the thought, the fury was good, it would keep him awake)? Wouldn't he, wouldn't he, would he, could Ford trust that he would when he couldn't trust anyone, not himself, not Stan, not the people in the town -

The people in the town included those robed cultists. Robes with crossed-out eyes, and they'd been watching him, he knew it, they'd been _watching_ and Bill was _watching_ and he was so tired of being watched and what if they were out there right now, what if they were going to take his eyes make him blind make him helpless, what if what if -

There was a knock at the door, and Ford snatched up his crossbow (have to be able to defend myself protect myself can't trust anyone) and screamed, "ARE YOU HERE TO STEAL MY EYES?" at - Stan. (But was it Stan, was it _really_ Stan, was he a trick a lie a (nightmare))

"Can always rely on you for a warm welcome." The voice sounded... right? Maybe? Maybe it sounded _too_ right, should Stan's voice have changed more, was this just another trick of Bill's -

Maybe-Stan didn't fight when Ford dragged him into the house, didn't fight when Ford checked his eyes, and they were dark why were they so dark but they weren't yellow and they weren't slit-pupilled and Ford checked them both because he didn't know if Bill could hide the signs of possession in one eye, he didn't know, he didn't know _anything_ but it didn't matter because neither of Stan's eyes had the signs of Bill's possession even if they _were_ weirdly dark, and maybe Ford could let himself trust. Just a little, just enough to put the crossbow down and explain (but not everything, not too much, just that he'd made a mistake and he needed Stan's help, that was all Stan needed to know, that wasn't enough that someone could use it against him) explain that he needed help and he needed Stan to help him -

Stan said he understood, said he'd understand, and Ford had to show him had to prove he was wrong and he _was_ wrong, he _said_ so, said, "Okay, I ain't seen somethin' like _this_ before," and that was so typical of Stan to pretend he wasn't impressed wasn't confused wasn't - wasn't dumb? But Stan _wasn't_ dumb, that was why it was so frustrating that he kept pretending he _was,_ kept acting like he couldn't keep up when Ford knew he could should would if he tried -

Ford brought up the boat - Stan had wanted the boat, had wanted to sail off and adventure and find (Bill's voice, **buy gold** ) no no No NO NO

Stan was yelling and Ford was yelling and _Stan was going to set fire to his research_ and Ford punched him and then Stan's eyes were dark again and Ford was reaching to rescue his journal but Stan was reaching into his jacket and - something gold, not a chain but he'd slung it around Ford's neck and Ford couldn't breathe for a moment, stopped trying to reach his journal to reach up and pull the gold thing off but Stan had already fastened it, and Stan caught his arm and shoved and Ford was on his knees and Stan was over him, and Ford was exhausted but his body still remembered Stan's weight on his back, still had _good_ associations with it, and Ford didn't understand when Stan's hand started fumbling at his slacks, Ford said, "This isn't the time!" and thought Stan would listen because _of course_ he'd listen, he always listened, but he wasn't listening now and Ford didn't see didn't know didn't understand because this was _Stan_ and _don't trust anyone_ but _he hadn't even realised this was trust,_ hadn't _known_ he trusted Stan not to do this not to use this against him but he had, he _had,_ he'd _trusted_ Stan and all he could do was whisper "Stop, please," and Stan hesitated just long enough that Ford knew he'd heard him, knew he was continuing _anyway,_ shoving Ford's pants down, dragging his coat up, unzipping his own jeans just far enough to rut his hard dick against Ford's ass and Ford was crying, ashamed that he was hard, ashamed that he wasn't fighting, ashamed that he was being used and ashamed that some part of him was _liking_ it, and then _he_ came and _Stan_ came and

his

head

went

quiet.

Stan leaned over him, head resting on Ford's back, and he was trembling and gasping and Ford wasn't sure that he wasn't crying - but Ford wasn't crying any more. His head wasn't numb, wasn't empty, wasn't blank; it was _quiet,_ and Ford distantly realised that he'd probably enjoy the feeling if he wasn't so aware of what had caused it. (Except this wasn't shock, so what _had_ caused it?)

Stan pulled back, let go of Ford's arm, muttered "Shit," so blankly Ford wasn't sure he even knew he'd said it. "Okay," he said louder, and there was a dead tone in his voice that Ford felt a little insulted by. _Ford_ was the one who'd just been raped, why was _Stan_ sounding like he felt worse about it? "Okay, we're - Ford, you, you're gonna - I'm gonna ask you questions, now, right? And you're gonna answer them, all honestly and truthfully and all that junk, you got it?"

"I got it," Ford answered, a little snidely, and frowned when he didn't feel the urge to say anything else or refuse.

"Great," Stan sighed, in a tone that sounded like he thought this was anything but. "So. Question one." He stopped.

Ford turned around, feeling a strange urge not to stand up. Stan was hunched over, still on his knees. If Ford did stand he'd be towering over his brother... and it felt like he shouldn't.

Stan glanced at him, face miserable and eyes a much brighter brown than they had been a few minutes ago (which was probably significant?), and then started very obviously looking for something else to give him an excuse not to meet Ford's eyes. His search landed on the journal, and he perked up. "Question one! Why's that thing so important that you threw a fit when I tried to burn it?"

"It's my research -"

"Yeah, I -"

"- it's all I've got to leave when I die. My only chance at a legacy," and Ford hadn't quite realised that _that_ was why he was so panicked at the thought of it being destroyed.

Stan jerked back to him, horrified. "You're _dyin'?!"_

"No. But Bill's going to kill me sooner or later." The words came out so easily - was the gold Stan had put around his neck something similar to the truth teeth? The flicker of curiousity Ford felt was almost nostalgic, and the lack of panic at what he'd just said was bizarre given how completely panicstricken he'd been every time he tried to so much as imagine telling anyone about the terrible mistakes he'd made...

"Bill who?" Stan was tense, fists rising, ready to try and punch Bill for daring to hurt Ford, and something in Ford that had been wary and hurting ever since he was seventeen and Crampelter laughed at him without being punched for it relaxed. And the self-irritation and refusal-to-trust that Ford would have expected to feel didn't happen - which proved that whatever Stan had put on him was affecting his emotions.

"Bill Cipher. He's a demonic being who tricked and betrayed me so I would make a portal that would allow him physical access to our world." Admitting that made him feel the shame he usually did whenever it crossed his mind, but this time it was - lesser? more distant?

So far, the most worrying thing about how this unknown artifact was affecting him was the fact that he wasn't frightened by being affected by it.

Stan lowered his fists, recognising that even _he_ couldn't punch an incorporeal demon. (Though Ford wasn't sure he'd put it past his brother to try, if Bill ever did the equivalent of showing his face... He felt a stir of perplexity at the lack of reaction to his thought, when it was the exact sort of thing that Bill loved to jump out and sneer at. Come to think of it, how much of the quiet in his head was the lack of Bill's echoing laughter?) He was pulled from his thoughts by Stan saying, "Next question. How come you didn't mention this bozo earlier?"

"I couldn't," Ford said simply, then blinked as he registered his own words.

"Why not?"

Pride, shame, fear of being looked down on, fear that if he admitted he'd caused this not even Stan would be willing to help - "Bill rearranged things in my head to stop me," he heard himself say, and the words sent a bolt of ice down his spine.

Stan looked almost as horrified as Ford felt. "The fucker's got that much power?" he spat, and Ford could see his eyes going dark again - which was definitely being caused by something unnatural, Ford could see the dark appearing in swirls that Stan's normal brown seemed to be fighting against (and while _Ford_ was glad to see Stan's natural colour winning, the emotions the thing Stan had put on him were causing included a sort of anticipatory submission at each swirl of dark).

"Only over me." Admitting _that_ made him feel the shame as keenly as he ever had, and Ford dropped his gaze to his hands.

"How come?" Stan sounded like he was trying to be gentle, but there was a growl to his voice that whatever was controlling Ford's reactions very much appreciated.

"I made a deal with him," Ford said, the words seeming to come from a distance. "I gave him access to my mind and body until the end of time, so that our work on the portal wouldn't be held back by my needing to sleep."

"Held back? What, was there a conjugation of the stars or somethin' ya needed to be ready for?"

"Conjunction, Stanley," Ford corrected him absently, distracted by how easily Bill could have claimed exactly that as his excuse. But he hadn't needed to, because - it had seemed perfectly reasonable to Ford that he wasn't working fast enough. "I don't think so. If there was, he never mentioned it."

"Huh." There was a pause. "So what did you get out of this deal?"

Ford looked back at Stan, confused. (The darkness was still there, but Stan's natural brown was overpowering it.) "I just told you - the deal was that I would give him access to my mind and use of my body whenever I fell asleep or otherwise lost consciousness, and in return he would use my body to work on the portal when I was asleep."

Stan looked just as confused, lips moving as he worked something out. One of his eyes started twitching. "So the deal was he got to use you and you got to be used?"

Hearing it put like that made Ford feel nauseous, how blatantly uneven the deal had been, how he hadn't even noticed until Stan pointed it out. The nausea was made worse by the knowledge that if Stan had miraculously appeared before Ford knew what Bill really was and made the exact same point, Ford would have waved it away without thinking, because... because he'd really believed that he could trust Bill. And the thing around his neck forced him to answer, "Yes."

He had to swallow before he could say the second sentence. "I wasn't thinking in terms of deals." And again. "I thought he was - I thought we were friends."

Stan crumpled a little. "Hoo, yeah. I know _that_ one. We're friends, everyone's friends, and don't you wanna prove what a good friend you are." Ford wanted to protest, wanted to say it hadn't been that - shallow? insincere? - but... two very different points stopped him: that Bill _had_ been that insincere, he just hadn't let it show; and that Stan was saying he'd been through something similar.

Ford frowned thoughtfully, one hand reaching up to touch the thing around his neck. He wouldn't normally have recognised that. He'd have felt insulted, felt that Stan was making this about _him_ when he couldn't possibly understand what it had felt like for _Ford_ to... be used and betrayed... He didn't know if Stan knew what that felt like. He didn't know anything about Stan's life since he'd ~~left~~ been thrown out, and the metal he could feel under his fingertips wasn't letting him tell himself that Stan must have been fine.

"Stanley, what is this?"

"Uh?" Stan looked over, confused, and then his eyes widened (brown eyes, the darkness was gone for now) and he was very obviously looking around for another distraction, and Ford gritted out, "Don't you think you owe me an explanation?" before he could think (and it was interesting that whatever it was didn't stop him from asking for that, he hadn't found any pattern yet in what it made him say and feel).

Stan hunched his shoulders, looking defensive, but then his eyes flicked down to Ford's neck and his mouth took a guilty twist. "It. Uh." He squeezed his eyes shut and braced like he was about to take a blow. "It's-a-slave-collar. Thing."

Ford blinked. There was a strange empty space in his - thoughts? feelings? - where he knew that he _should_ be disgusted, horrified, furious, but he just... _wasn't._

He also wasn't happy, or, Tesla forbid, _grateful,_ so he supposed the mental effects of the enslavement could have been more... pervasive. Or maybe pervasive wasn't the right word, since it had dragged truths out of him that he hadn't even known (his eyes widened as he connected his unusual honesty with the order Stan had given - something about 'answer my questions truthfully and honestly', wasn't it?), but it was certainly less _extreme_ than it could have been.

It held him silent long enough for Stan to elaborate, "Some kinda - uhh, the guy who had it called it a bitch-making collar, buuuut he also had this weird 'I'm a werewolf in spirit!' thing going on, _so,"_ he seesawed his hand, "not gonna take that as, y'know, a literal thing." 

Ford stared at Stanley. He didn't know what expression was on his face, but it made Stan turn almost the same shade as his jacket as he looked away again uncomfortably. "S'got, um, well, ya got first-hand experience of the uh, the activation requirements," he mumbled, with a note in his voice that Ford couldn't place but the - collar? - wouldn't let him overlook, "and then it makes whoever it's on the," he shrugged, determinedly casual, "perfect lov- I mean, I guess, perfect sex-slave? of whoever put it on them."

Ford stroked the collar as his eyebrows drew together. He wasn't feeling particularly like a sex-slave - no urge to kneel and call Stan his Master (well, now that he was thinking about it that didn't sound _un_ appealing, but he certainly wasn't feeling any kind of compulsion to do so), no beliefs that Stan was the most irresistibly attractive man he'd ever met (that honour still went to the siren he'd met and briefly dated), no delusions about Stan being completely right about everything... "How does it determine what would be considered a 'perfect sex-slave' by the - activator?" He left the word Stan had _almost_ used for what it would turn him into alone. There was nothing 'lover'like about being enslaved - or enslaving someone, for that matter.

Stan blinked, looking surprised. "I dunno. Guess I didn't think about that side of it too much."

"Does it have anything to do with the way your eyes keep being - invaded by a much darker shade of brown?"

Stan's face went blank with shock. "Say what now?" he yelped, hands going to his face as if he could feel the change by poking around his eyes hard enough.

"You didn't notice? Well, I suppose you haven't had much reason to look at your reflection in the last day..." Ford mused, trailing off as Stan ignored him in favour of - panicking?

"Shit, shit, _shit."_ Stan looked back at Ford, eyes desperate. "I didn't know. I swear, Poindexter, I didn't know, I wouldn't have brought the damn thing into the house if I had -"

"Are you trying to blame the item for the fact that you used it?" Ford asked, but the collar kept in his mind the fact that the changes to Stan's eyes _had_ shown there was something influencing him. It was disconcerting, what the collar _wasn't_ doing - it wasn't _making_ him think that Stan wasn't responsible for what he'd done, and it wasn't making him happy about what Stan had done, either. It was keeping him from dismissing the evidence that Stan had been under _something's_ influence when he attacked Ford, and making him admit to himself that 'the collar is able to affect Stan's mind and _made_ him use it' was a more reasonable hypothesis than 'Stan found a way of mystically altering his eye-colour and used it while forcing the collar onto Ford so that he could _pretend_ the collar was affecting his mind, with that pretence taking the form of insisting he hadn't realised it was possible', and that was all.

Ford's question made Stan cringe, sinking in on himself as if he was trying to take up half the space he should. Ford frowned. The thing to do with a hypothesis was test it, so it was clear what his next actions should be. "Stan, look at me." Miserable brown eyes glanced at him before darting away. "No, keep looking at me."

"What for?" Stan grumbled.

"So I can conduct an experiment," Ford told him briskly, and was rewarded with a steady stare of disbelief. Brown eyes. "Now, what were you thinking when you put this collar around my neck?" Stan's eyes immediately turned dark as his expression settled into the sulky lines Ford had seen all too often whenever his brother knew he was in the wrong but didn't want to admit it.

"I was thinking that since you were gonna throw me away again _anyway_ I might as well get some answers about what the hell's going on with ya before I go!" The angry outburst made Ford rock back in surprise - he remembered his brother's temper, but this switch from guilty and apologetic to vitriolic fury was... unnatural. As unnatural as the darkness that Stan was blinking out of his eyes as his expression went from mulish to uncertain.

Then the collar dragged Ford's attention back to Stan's words, and how sincere he seemed to be. 'Since you were going to throw me away again' - that made it sound like he thought Stan wasn't even a person! Or maybe like Stan thought Ford didn't see him as a person. Which was ridiculous - of course Stan was a person, they were twins! Stan was his... best friend... or he had been before he betrayed Ford and got -

Ford clapped a hand over his mouth, the sudden nausea startling him. Stan betrayed Ford and got thrown out - out of their parents' house, out of their family. 'You were gonna throw me away again' - thrown away, thrown _out,_ and weren't those two phrases far too linguistically similar for Ford's comfort?

"Ford? You okay?" Brown eyes and worry and the collar was sliding the nausea away, hiding it as neatly as if it had never been there at all, and Ford let his hand fall and said, "Yes, and I believe my experiment was successful."

Stan rolled his eyes a little, but the exasperation couldn't take hold when he was still worried and a touch guilty. "Mind sharing with the rest of the class, Poindexter?"

"Not at all! When I questioned the reasoning behind your actions, your eyes immediately turned to that darker shade of brown, and your natural eye-colour returned when my reaction to your choice of words worried you."

"My choice of words?" Stan looked irritated, ready to complain Ford was overreacting - but then he thought of something that made him wince again. "Did I say something that sounded like that demon?"

"What? No!" Ford blinked as he thought over the question. "I _would_ be asking you not to refer to me as 'Sixer', but frankly I don't think the collar will allow me to associate anything you say to me with Bill."

Stan cringed, rubbing at his face. "Woohoo," he muttered sarcastically. "The creepy mind-controlling collar's gonna stop you associating me with the creepy mind-controlling demon."

"Technically, what Bill does doesn't count as mind- _control,_ or else I'd have been faced with very different problems while I've been fighting him," Ford corrected him. "And I still haven't figured out what criteria this collar is using for its effects on me."

"How'd'ya mean? I said already, it makes you be what I want ya t' be," Stan said with a tinge of confusion.

"Yes, but so far I've been correcting you and - I certainly _feel_ as though I have the potential to disagree with you, though I'm not sure I _have_ since you collared me, and also I am feeling a distinct lack of urge to serve or obey you."

Stan stared at him, confused, unimpressed, possibly a little disgusted by what Ford had just implied he expected. "Like I said," he repeated slowly, "it - makes - ya - what - I - want. Why the fuck would I want ya to not be _you?"_

"You... I thought you hated me." Stan looked devastated. "I thought that was why you never got in contact with me after you left home."

"Wait, wait, wait - you _wanted_ me to talk to ya?" And now his expression was the same as it was when he looked up at the window after their father threw him out, the desperate hope covering the devastation that Ford hadn't recognised until he saw it clearly just now. 

"You're my brother, of course I..." Ford trailed off, blinking. "You thought I didn't want to talk to you? Ever again?"

Stan shrugged at him helplessly, hands waving at the empty space between them. "You turned away. You drew the curtain. You didn't - I asked Ma, you never said anything about wantin' ta hear from me, so I... I thought..." _I thought you hated me._

They stared at each other for a few moments. Moments which, Ford noticed while he was trying not to think about what they'd just said to each other, Bill once again did not take advantage of to make fun of him. He seized on that topic instead, confident that Stan would be just as happy to change the subject as he was. "Speaking of the collar's effects, it seems to be preventing Bill from intruding in my mind. Is there anything that would explain it apparently having anti-possession properties?"

"Not that got mentioned," Stan said with the expression that meant he was going over whatever _had_ been said. He paused, eyes widening.

"You've thought of something!"

"Nope! Not at all! Not a thing!" He waved his hands, trying to dismiss whatever had occurred to him.

"Stanley, tell me what you're thinking right now!" Ford commanded him.

Stan looked uncomfortable, eyes darting around, and then caved. "You said he could possess you because of a deal you made, right? 'Cause you gave him permission."

"That's right." Without the collar, Ford would have decked him instead of answering. As it was, he was surprised it was allowing him to be aware of his anger at that question, instead of leaving the empty space he found when he tried to be disgusted or horrified that he was currently enslaved.

"Well. Uh. See, the thing is. Deals only, they don't..." Stan stammered out, stopping and starting again as he tried to put his thoughts into words. "Uh. You can't get held to a deal about stuff you ain't got. Or, I mean whoever you made it with can _try,_ but they ain't gonna get very far."

"What do you..."

Stan swallowed, avoiding Ford's eyes. "I mean, you gave him access to your mind and body, right? But, while that thing's on ya, they ain't - you ain't -" He was practically squirming, rubbing at his arms as if he'd suddenly noticed how cold it was. "See, I basically stole the things you gave him access to, right? So that deal you made, it don't count now, 'cause I stole those things and _I_ never made any deals givin' 'em away."

Ford blinked as he grasped the idea Stan was trying to explain. It felt like it fitted into his mind like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle, like it was meant to be there. (He was fairly sure that was from the collar's influence.) "So my choice is to be owned by you, or owned by him." Stan flinched, mouth opening to protest, but Ford continued, "And obviously at the moment I feel like you're the superior choice despite you already using the collar to force me to answer your questions, and there's a fairly high probability that there's actual logic behind that opinion and it's not just the collar affecting my decision-making skills!" Stan cringed and hastily babbled out something about Ford not having to answer anything if he didn't want to, but Ford barely noticed, too eager to explain his sudden revelation. "So, if I keep wearing the collar at least while I finish researching a protective barrier that should be effective in banishing Bill from my house, then everything should work out fine!"

Stan looked doubtful. "How long d'you think it's gonna take you to get that barrier set up, bro? Because I already couldn't even resist long enough to take that book you shoved at me and go, fuck, I couldn't even resist givin' you some dumb orders, and... I... I mean, I know it's too late already for me to not -" he stopped, hands tracing circles in the air as if he was trying to pull the word he needed out of it - _"that,_ but - I don't think you're gonna be - I don't wanna make it _worse,_ and -"

"You think you're going to rape me again," Ford clarified. He frowned. "I'm not certain that it would even meet the legal requirements for rape, given that I'd be consenting -"

"Yeah, take it from someone who's had a few too many next-day regrets after the drinks wore off - just 'cuz you think you're down for something while your head's messed up, don't mean you're gonna feel like you were once the stuff's worn off."

Ford frowned in confusion. It _sounded_ like Stan was saying that someone had - taken advantage of him? The phrase was old-fashioned, but it also seemed to be the most accurate description of what Stan was implying.

It was also the most accurate description of what Stan would be doing if he had sex with Ford while Ford was collared. And Stan did have something of a point when he suggested that being unable to resist the collar's quote-unquote 'activation requirements' was not a positive sign when it came to his chances of resisting Ford appearing to be willing... but that did nothing to change the fact that, "Regardless of my feelings about anything you may do to me, my chances of survival if I remove this collar without another means of blocking Bill from my mind are nonexistant."

Stan looked horrified. "Bro, I'd -"

Ford shook his head. "Bill is vindictive and quick-tempered, and will respond _very badly_ to the fact that I've been freed of his presence at all. If he regains access to my mind - especially when we've already established that he's capable of altering me in ways that I can't notice..." he trailed off, swallowing down the lump that had materialised in his throat. He didn't want to think about what Bill might do to him. He didn't want to think about what Bill already _had_ done to him, and how many worse things he might have up his metaphorical sleeve.

"Huh." Stan sat back on his heels, frowning thoughtfully as his eyes ran over the collar around Ford's neck. He looked up to meet Ford's eyes again and said, "Gonna try something," before licking his lips and enunciating clearly, "I want every bad thing Bill did to your head to get undone."

Nothing happened.

Ford shrugged at Stan, feeling weirdly apologetic as he watched his brother's face fall. "It may be that the command is too generalised, or it may be that while I'm under the collar's influence everything Bill did already counts as 'undone'," he suggested.

"Ugh." Stan scrubbed at his face. "So, you're gonna be wearing the collar for - a while, and workin' on a barrier to keep that bastard out of your head. And I'm... probably... gonna..." He shook his head, "Fuck that, I'm gonna show that piece'a trash how stubborn I can get, and then when you've got the barrier set up and the collar off you can go fetch that crossbow of yours and I'll stand still for target practice."

Ford winced. There was - a high probability that he would be happy to take Stan up on that offer once the collar was removed, but at the moment, just the thought of shooting at Stan made him feel vaguely nauseous. And also, "I would prefer to dismantle the portal Bill used me to build before researching the barrier."

Stan paused, and blew out heavily. "That's... fair. I guess. Think it's gonna take long?"

"Well, previously I had to refer to the notes in my journals to make sure Bill hadn't twisted my memories so that I was unintentionally _fixing_ the portal instead of dismantling it -"

"Your journals."

"Yes?"

Stan gave him a flat stare. "Like the journal you were asking me to take 'as far away as possible'."

"Yes, exactly! Without the blueprints, Bill can't use any of his other victims to fix the portal -"

"So he don't remember how the thing's built, he needs stuff to refer to?"

Ford opened his mouth, paused, raised a finger, blinked, closed his mouth, then said weakly, "I assure you this plan was the most rational one I could think of when I decided on it." Stan gave him an unimpressed stare. "Which may possibly be related to my having spent the last few months trying to stay awake as much as possible to prevent Bill from using my body for his evil schemes, but still!"

Stan rolled his eyes, then straightened up suddenly. "Wait wait wait, back up - what was that about other victims?"

Ford flinched, brain dragging up the memory of every person in the diner looking at him with Bill's yellow eyes. "Bill has suborned multiple people within the town, and can possess them at will."

Stan blinked at him. "No, he hasn't."

The flat dismissal sent a flash of anger through Ford. "I assure you, I have seen with my own eyes -"

"Bro, if he had, he'd have sent a bunch of them up here and had two or three hold you down while the others fixed that portal thing." The blunt logic smashed through Ford's certainty. "Hell, state you're in, probably woulda only needed one to hold ya down."

Ford winced. "Thank you, Stanley," he grumbled. 

"Just sayin'," Stan responded casually. "Gonna guess he had you thinking he had everyone else under his thumb to stop ya from getting help from anyone." He paused, face softening, and looked guilty again as he cast another glance at the collar around Ford's neck.

 _Trust no one_ and ten years of _I thought you hated me_ between them, and Stan had still been the person Ford turned to. Which led to the creepy mind-controlling collar, but a) that wasn't Stan's fault so much as the collar's, and b) it was the first successful protection against Bill that Ford had experienced.

"What were you planning on doing with this collar, anyway?" he asked.

Stan sighed, and shrugged heavily. "Fuck if I know," he grumbled. "Figured I could find a way to destroy the thing after I'd dealt with what you wanted, I'd already been screwing around with it for a week before I got your card."

"Destroy it?" Ford yelped. "Stanley, this is a fascinating, potentially one-of-a-kind magical artifact! Why would you ever want to -"

"Is this coming from you or the collar right now?" Stan interrupted. "Because I honestly can't tell." Ford glared at him. Stan looked unimpressed. "'Sides, trust me, I've seen way more 'one-of-a-kind mystical artsyfarts' than anyone should hafta, and -"

"Really?" Ford couldn't help the doubt in his voice as he questioned Stan's declaration.

Stan scowled for a moment at Ford's question, then offered him a grin. "I'll tell ya the whole story sometime, but short version is, a while back I was drunk with someone - guy, chick, never figured out what they were - and we were bonding complainin' 'bout older siblings who've got no clue how much they are ta put up with -" Ford's eyes narrowed, the collar holding him quiet _for now_ but he was going to remember this - "and then I got to find out their version of that was a bit more - uh, hectic? than us," it _had_ been about him, Ford knew it! "Least, I thought it was back _then,"_ Stan gave the portal a significant look and Ford bristled, "and long story short I ended up smashing some cursed jewellery that was meant to be a 'boost your power at a _terrible cost!'_ -type deal, and they were either impressed or really pissed off, and waved their hands and said this bit about how since I could handle the stuff I should keep on findin' it," he blew a raspberry, "and I've been running into crap like this ever since."

"How long ago was that?" Ford asked, fingers twitching for a pen and his journal to write this down. (Except the only journal in the room was his _first,_ and he'd run out of room in that one months ago...)

"Eight, maybe nine years ago? So trust me, bro, when I say I've seen way too many of these things, I mean it."

"And how many of them have you destroyed?" Ford managed to keep most of the censure from his voice, but apparently not enough that Stan couldn't pick up on it if the scowl he got in return was any sign.

"As many as I could, more or less." Stan started counting off on his fingers, "There was one really pretty bauble that some water sprite or somethin' was meant to have, ended up giving that back to 'em, there was some cast-iron helmet that wrecked the trash compacter I tossed it in, ended up pouring quick-dry cement in it so's at least no one ends up wearing the thing - woulda tossed it in a volcano but it woulda probably made it erupt - uh, there was this miniature wax horse, never got that explained to me but I'm pretty sure it ran off during the full moon... whole bunch of evil jewellery, seriously, I could stock a whole jewellers out with that stuff, an' there's way too many of them protected against fire damage -"

"How do you know that?"

Stan tugged back his right sleeve, baring some truly frightening burn scars. "Found out the hard way, how else? Figured out how ta check for it after the first -" he glanced at his arm and pulled his sleeve back down - "coupl'a times. That fuckin' collar's gott'em, too, just so ya know," he added as an afterthought.

Ford made a mental note to check what his opinion on that fact was after the collar had been removed, since he was almost certain that the relief he felt was one of the collar's effects and not his own reaction. "Well, since destroying the collar is currently not an option, you'll have to sate your appetite for destruction by helping me destroy the portal, instead."

"Yeah, yeah, we already agreed we're gonna do that first," Stan grumbled as he forced himself to his feet. He hesitated, looking at the collar _again_ (Ford could already tell he was going to grow very tired of that), but offered a hand to help Ford stand up. Ford took hold and used it to pull himself up faster than Stan was prepared for, giving Ford the opportunity to press a quick kiss to his mouth.

Stan froze, and they stared at each other. "Blaming that on the collar."

"Absolutely," Ford agreed.

"And, uh, I already said, I'm not - gonna -" Stan's eyes had gone dark again as they kept dropping to Ford's lips then darting back up, and then he practically threw himself back and spun around to face away from Ford. "Portal! Right! We gotta - ya know what, I could really do with a shower, you ain't got a shower big enough for two, right? Or hey, maybe just skip the shower, put on some more layers, make sure there's more than one bed in this dump- _place_ -"

"I can't sleep alone tonight," Ford interrupted, a chill slipping down his spine.

"Sure you can, just like you... have been..." Stan trailed off as he realised why Ford was objecting.

"Maybe the next time we can find alternative arrangements, but for tonight we need to make sure that Bill can't use my body while I'm unconscious, and that means you need to be there." Ford wasn't going to bring up how much he _wanted_ Stan there, not when even he could tell it was probably the collar making him feel that way, but it was simply logical that they'd _have_ to share a bed and his feelings and Stan's misgivings were both utterly irrelevant.

Stan looked defeated (as far as Ford could tell without seeing his face), which was a far-too-rare response to Ford's impeccable logic. "Whooo-hooo," Stan cheered under his breath, then set his shoulders. "Okay, if we're gonna be sharing a bed, we'd better get the heating back up."

Ford blinked. "Wait, what?"

"No excuses for cuddling together under a pile of blankets, no huddling together for warmth - we are gonna get that room so toasty-warm we can't stand to fucking touch!"

"I don't think that kind of heat is possible," Ford said without thinking, mind full of summers in Glass Shard Bay when he'd felt like he was literally melting and couldn't tell whether it was because of the heat or Stan's hands all over him.

The noise Stan made in response - not quite a hum, not quite a sigh - told Ford he was remembering the same thing. Ford licked his lips, and stepped closer to his brother. Stan was stubborn, but Ford had almost twenty years of experience telling him that he just had to convince Stan this wasn't the collar talking, that _Ford_ wanted Stan, because Stan always gave him what he really wanted. (Unless what he wanted was space... but the collar was making him look at 'wanting Stan to go away' and 'wanting himself and Stan to be seen as separate people instead of two halves of one whole' as different things, and the second one had never occurred to Ford, but he had to admit it seemed much more accurate. His fingers reached for a journal he didn't have, for a pen, for _something_ to make notes on this so he could review them once his head was clearer. Maybe they could recover his third journal from its hiding place, since he didn't need to hide it from Bill after all...) "Stan?"

Stan tensed and shot towards the exit, leaving Ford feeling rejected despite knowing that Stanley was trying to act on what Ford _would_ want if he were in his right mind. He would have expected to feel angry at the rejection, but the collar was interfering - and of course he wouldn't be allowed to feel angry at his brother for trying to look out for his best interests, but it did make the current situation slightly dizzying to consider: the collar was preventing Ford from being angry at Stan for rejecting his advances, which he made because the collar was influencing him.

Ford sighed, and headed after his brother - then jerked as he remembered the most important thing right now _wasn't_ taking a shower with him. "Hey, knucklehead! We have to make sure the portal's not ready to be activated before we leave!"

Stan groaned, and slumped, and wheeled around to fix Ford with a tired stare. "Whadda we gotta do?"

"Well, I'll start by looking over the settings on the control panels, and if you could - hmmm -" Ford headed for the controls, thinking over what Stan could do without Ford's guidance.

"There any reason smashing it with a wrench won't do the job?"

Ford turned back to him. "It's designed to draw power from nuclear waste, so wanton damage has a high potential of poisoning or irradiating everyone in range - which would be us, at the moment."

"Why the fuck would you design it like that?"

Ford could feel his expression closing off. "It was Bill's idea."

"Fucker," Stan muttered, casting around for another idea. He brightened as he spotted the journal lying on the ground, and asked, "Hey, you said that thing's got the blueprints in it, right? Think it'll make enough sense to tell me where to hit this thing?"

"Technically, it has one-third of the blueprints," Ford corrected him. His immediate reaction was to assume that of course Stan wouldn't understand them enough to be useful, but the collar didn't let him say so, and a moment's reflection left him slightly disconcerted by his assumption. He _knew_ Stanley wasn't dumb, and yet his reaction hadn't had anything to do with Stanley not having been taught to read engineering blueprints...

The worst part was that the underlying assumption felt familiar from - Tesla, from _high school!_ \- so it wasn't due to Bill twisting anything in his head. How long had Ford been lying when he said he knew his brother wasn't dumb?

"Hey, Earth to nerd, come in, nerd."

"What?" Ford blinked at his brother, who had picked the journal up while Ford was considering their past from this new viewpoint, and was now waving it at him.

"You seemed to be getting pretty lost in your head again - I was asking, can I use the notes in your diary to tell me what to smash?"

"It's not a _diary,_ Stanley, it's a _journal,"_ Ford said, scandalised.

"Uh- _huh."_ Stan flipped it open to the first entry, and cleared his throat. Ford lunged to stop him, but Stan dodged and began to recite in a rather-too-passable imitation of Ford's voice, "Dear Diary -"

_"I didn't write that!"_

"- today I begin to chronicle my discoveries in the mysterious, sleepy town of Gravity Falls, which appears to be located at the centre of a vortex of weirdness -" Ford managed to catch Stan's arms, and started trying to wrestle his journal away from Stan, who tried to keep hold of it, and really they should have expected to end up kissing again.

"Your mouth tastes fuckin' terrible," Stan informed him as they pulled apart to breathe.

"So does yours!" Ford retorted, and dragged him back to prove his point. Stan kissed pretty much the same way he had when they were teenagers - all his attention on _making_ Ford like it, and oh, he'd always been unfairly successful.

Stan finally grabbed Ford's upper arms and held him back with a growl of effort. Ford was pretty sure his eyes were still dark, but his pupils were blown too wide for Ford to see them, and even if they were the collar wasn't able to overpower Stan's stubbornness. "No. No, we're not doin' this."

 _"Please,"_ Ford gasped, and he wasn't sure when he'd lost his composure enough to start begging, but Stan always gave him what he really wanted -

"Portal first."

\- except making out with Stan in his sub-basement _wasn't_ what he really wanted, he really wanted the portal gone and Bill no longer an issue so that he... could...

"I apologise," he said, stepping backwards and attempting to straighten out his clothes. "It seems the collar's effect is accumulative, as well as insidious."

"Gonna guess that's nerdspeak for 'it gets stronger the longer you wear it'," Stan said, rolling his eyes, and continued before Ford could respond, "and ya never actually answered me - will your blueprints show me what I can smash without wrecking us as well as that pile of gonna-be junk?"

Ford looked around for his journal, which had been dropped while they were - distracted - but Stan saw it first and scooped it off the ground to wave in his face. Ford snatched it away and rolled his eyes at Stan (who looked completely unapologetic) as he flipped through the pages to the double-spread of the blueprints. "Here! ...Hmmm," there seemed to be far less warnings of how dire the consequences of activating the portal would be than Ford remembered writing, "...Ah." He'd written those warnings in invisible ink. Because he was writing _everything_ in invisible ink by that point, to keep it secret from Bill, despite the fact that hiding _these_ warnings from Bill was exceedingly pointless given that Bill was the reason for the warnings in the first place.

"That sounded like it was maybe a 'nope, these blueprints are gonna tell ya to blow us up' ah, 'stead of a 'yeah, this's what we want' ah."

"That is -" Ford looked again at the lack of visible warnings - "not an entirely inaccurate description of them, _but_ -" Stan smacked a hand over his face, and Ford raised his voice in response, _"but_ it's more accurately a case of certain warnings being less visible than I intended, and those warnings have nothing to do with _dis_ mantling the portal, so the point is moot."

Stan dragged his hand down his face. "Ya wrote warnings -" he started, then his voice flattened. "Right. Forgot you thought you were gonna die." Ford bristled at the dismissal inherent in Stan's choice of words, but Stan continued, "You know I'm not gonna let that happen now, right? Dunno why you ever thought I would, but ya gotta know better than that _now,_ right?" There was a pleading note to his voice, and Ford slipped the journal into his inner pocket and stepped forwards to put a hand on his shoulder.

"Stan, I called you because part of me felt that you're the only chance of survival I _have._ It's just that there's another part that was convinced _nothing_ could save me, and between that and the way Bill prevented me from explaining the situation to anyone..." Ford let the sentence trail off, not entirely sure how he could end it. A point-by-point explanation of how exactly he'd expected Bill to slowly destroy him, perhaps? He wasn't sure the collar would let him say something that would hurt Stan that much. 

Stan reached up and squeezed his arm. "Hey. Bro. Nerd. _Ford._ I'm here. This is... maybe not great, but hey, we've got the demon locked out of your head, just gotta find a way ta keep that going - we're gonna make this work. Okay?"

"Okay," Ford agreed. All through their teenage years, he'd thought when Stan said things like that it meant that he wanted Ford to be completely dependent on him; the collar was making it feel more like he was - offering a shoulder for Ford to lean on, metaphorically, while he got his metaphorical feet back under him. Which was less insulting, but he'd never accepted it when Ford tried to offer the same, so it still felt as if Stan was saying Ford was weaker than he was - "Why did you never let me support you?"

"Uh. What?"

"When we were kids," Ford clarified brusquely, "you always shoved me away and got mad at me if I tried to help you feel better -"

Stan's eyebrows flew up, and he interrupted, "Hey, I dunno what _you're_ remembering, but _I_ never found 'hey, you're dumb and useless but I still want you around' all that supportive, okay?"

Ford stared back at him, mouth hanging open for a moment. "I never said _that!"_ Even with the collar reframing things for him, he couldn't remember ever saying anything that could be misconstrued to mean that - poison Stanley had just -!

But he'd dismissed the idea that Stanley could help with the portal without Ford guiding him step-by-step, he recalled, abruptly chilled. And Stanley was good at reading people - he probably knew how little Ford thought of his intelligence long before Ford did...

Stan groaned, rubbing at his temples, and Ford realised that there was another possible source for the vitriol Stan had just spat at him. The more Stan could be convinced that he preferred the collared version of Ford, the less likely he'd be to want to take it off, and this whole situation was caused by the collar influencing Stan in the first place - "We might need to find a way to shield _you_ from the collar's influence before we work on anything else."

"Ugggggh." Stan let his head fall back. "We've got too much damn stuff to do," he told the ceiling.

Ford wasn't entirely sure whether he meant 'too much to do to waste time on another thing' or 'too much to do and this is added to the list'. Either way, "On second consideration, I think we should accept that the collar is not our priority at this point in time." Though it had risen a few places now that he knew it was affecting Stan beyond eye colour and libidinous inclinations. "Perhaps for now we should settle for confirming that the portal is not currently set to activate, and then we can go upstairs and -" shower, he was going to say, but he was interrupted by someone's stomach growling. He honestly couldn't tell if it was his or his brother's, and the look on Stan's face said neither could he. "...see if I have any food left in the house, I suppose."

Stan rubbed his stomach. "Sounds like a plan."

Ford thought back to the blueprints he'd just glanced over, and winced. "We may need to collect my other journals to confirm that my recollections of what the settings mean are accurate -" Stan groaned again, louder - "but that can certainly wait till tomorrow."

"You're sure about that?"

"Now that you've corrected my misapprehension that Bill has other victims available to activate the portal, yes." Ford felt his own words sink in, releasing tension he hadn't noticed after carrying it so long. Bill didn't have anyone else to use. Bill couldn't use him any more. He had _time_ \- time to work out a barrier, time to dismantle the portal, time to fix the mistakes he'd made.

"Great!" Stan spun to head back upstairs. "Food, here we come."

Ford smiled, shaking his head, looked over the switchboard to satisfy himself, and frowned in puzzlement. Half of the switches seemed to be in the 'on' position, but it looked as if instead of working from one side to the other Bill had been working from the outside in. He could probably have switched all of the ones left in one go by spreading Ford's arms and shoving, which would be ridiculously immature... but that didn't necessarily mean Bill wouldn't do it, Ford considered. Then he smiled, stroking his collar again, and corrected himself: wouldn't _have done_ it.

"Oi! Poindexter! You coming?"

"Yes!" he called back. "The settings aren't a problem, so even if someone were to throw the lever -"

Stan jerked to a halt, and gave him the hard stare that meant he'd been missing something incredibly obvious. "The lever," he repeated.

"...Yes?"

"That lever." He pointed.

"Yes," Ford repeated, eyes narrowing slightly as he tried to understand Stan's point.

Stan turned and looked over the basement again, searching for something. He snatched up a bit of rubble from the ground, carried it over to the lever, and jammed it in firmly.

"...Oh."

"'Oh', he says." Stan dusted his hands off and folded his arms. "There any other way to start this thing going?"

"...No." Ford resettled his glasses and pretended he wasn't blushing.

Stan grinned at him fondly. "Still haven't gotten the hang of that dead guy's razor, huh, bro?"

"That - what -?" Ford spluttered as Stan swung an arm around his shoulders and walked them both to the stairs. "Since when do _you_ know about Occam's Razor?"

"Hey, I picked up a few things over the years," Stan said, buffing his nails on his coat. Ford gave him a _look,_ because it might have been over ten years since they'd seen each other, but he still recognised Stan overselling something. Stan avoided his eyes as he added, "And I might've gotten chased through a few states by some FBI dumbass who kept yelling about me breaking it, but, y'know, details." He let his arm fall from around Ford's shoulders, and waved for him to go first. (It had never occurred to Ford before that he should have made the stairs wide enough for two people to go up them side-by-side.)

Ford blinked as he tried to make sense of what Stan had just said. Stan pushed him lightly, and he obeyed the silent instruction to start climbing as he asked, "You're in trouble with the FBI too?"

"It's not really trouble if you outrun them enough and it's not legally me 'cause I wasn't using my real name and also there were extenuatin' circumstances of the cursed objects kind and - hang on. 'Too'?" Stan's high-speed justifications tripped and halted as he registered the last word.

Ford cleared his throat, paying close attention to the stairs and carefully _not_ looking at the bloody handprints he'd left on the walls. "It turns out that nuclear waste is not generally available even for revolutionary scientific breakthroughs -"

"Revolutionary blah-blah meanin' world-destroying demon portals?" Stan teased. 

_"Yes,_ Stanley, though at the time I had no idea the portal was so dangerous, and they didn't make the slightest effort to evaluate my proposed storage or use - are you _laughing?"_

"Who, me? Nope, no laughing going on here, buddy," Stan choked out between sniggers. Ford scowled at the landing ahead of him and began plotting his revenge - there was obviously _something_ about his involvement with the FBI that Stanley had been trying not to talk about, so if Ford were to delve a little further into that - Stan would probably try to dodge, so Ford should really plan on pinning him down first, maybe if he got him sat at the kitchen table while they were eating he could just sit in Stan's lap, that would hold him in place, and then he... would probably dump Ford on his ass because Stan was still trying to resist the collar for both of them.

Ford groaned, running a hand over his face.

"Hey, you doin' alright?" Stan asked, amusement vanishing under worry.

"Stanley, please can we just give in to the collar? I'm tired of having to try and monitor my thoughts to see whether they're being influenced, and I don't seem to be particularly successful at it if your point about Bill giving me hallucinations wihtout my realising it means anything!"

"Uh, it means that you didn't notice _Bill_ doing somethin' to you. The collar's different. 'Sides, I already said I'm not gonna give in to the thing -"

Ford growled. If Stan kept up this resistance much longer, it would serve him right if Ford _did_ climb on and ride him when they got to the kitchen! - Which was a very nice thought, but there were too many logistical difficulties, such as removing their clothes without Stan's co-operation. And without freezing to death, Ford acknowledged belatedly as they finally reached the top of the stairs and the temperature of his house impinged on his awareness.

He'd have to wait for their shower, instead.

"Uh, Ford?"

"Yes, Stan?" he responded pleasantly, mind wandering between the inaccurate fantasy of riding Stanley on a kitchen chair and the potentially-realisable fantasy about the possibilities from a shared shower.

"Shit," Stan muttered, and caught Ford by the shoulders to make him turn around. Stan's eyes were back to the brown they _should_ be, Ford noted, and even with the collar's influence he still felt relieved by that. Stan seemed less relieved by whatever he was seeing in Ford's eyes, but after a few moments of tense study he relaxed a little. "So, food, heating, a shower, and then we'll try and decide what ta work on first out of all this supernatural junk."

Ford barely managed to resist licking his lips at the mention of a shower, mind filled with an image of naked wet Stanley. "Sounds like a plan," he agreed. Stan looked suspicious. "I'm sure I've got something clean you'll fit in." Like his bed. ...Hopefully his bed was clean, maybe he should go and check -

"Nice try, poindexter, but you're not getting out of a wash that easy," Stan said, interrupting Ford's attempts to remember when exactly he'd last done laundry. "Pretty sure you smell worse than I do right now, and trust me, that ain't a good thing." Ford huffed, folding his arms, and found himself caught between his _entirely rational_ distaste for the effort involved in getting clean, and the opportunity it would offer to be naked with his brother.

Before either side could win, Stan clapped him on the shoulder and shoved him down the hall. "Food," he ordered.

Ford straightened out his coat and stalked in the direction of the kitchen, not letting on to the curl of hot pleasure in his gut from obeying.

...One way or another, Stanley's promise not to act on what the collar was doing to them wasn't going to last beyond tonight. Ford had spent months resisting Bill - he didn't have any willpower _left,_ especially not to fight against something he _wanted_ (and he'd been missing his twin for years too long already).

Ford could feel a smirk curling his lips. Tesla, he was looking forwards to breaking Stan's promise.

**Author's Note:**

> It's an AU, if I want the siren Ford dated to be male here I can make that happen.
> 
> ...There is so much less smut here than I intended when I came up with this premise. Someday this might be continued, and that might change.


End file.
